Civ VI - Beta Gauntlet II

Nothing flash about the starting position but thought I’d play a few turns and see what happens. Seems like the starting dirt only determines how good the capital is but it’s the surrounding dirt that determines the Empire.

And the neighbours.

Aside from the Barbarian Scout, we meet Pericles around turn 10. He’s really quite close and seems to have a high and mighty opinion of himself. Let’s build some slingers. Three, to be precise.

Around turn 20 or so we meet another neighbour - Hojo. He’s also met Pericles and has a warrior standing outside my soon to be Expo - Athens.

Pericles mustn’t be the trusting sort - he’s got a few warriors and a couple of scouts out and about but only a minor delay. Turn 39 and we meet *another* neighbour - Trajan. He hasn’t met Pericles yet. And nor will he.

Turn 40 and Athens is ours. Not sure what to call it so we’ll let the name stick. Pericles’ carcass is quietly taken away. Before he left us, Pericles was kind enough to build us a couple of quarries, a Campus, a settler and a builder. We must have had four Eurekas and an inspiration off that capture alone.

Troops, about face. Let’s go find Hojo!

He’s north of us a little. As is Trajan.

Trajan is closer but wants to be besties - why not? He doesn’t really know us yet.

Hojo knows us and he’s a little sad.

Turn 50 and he’s sadder without his little Kyoto. We negotiated peace - only because we have no idea where the little bastard is hiding in some place called Fukuoka. Still, lots of GPT and Silk Texts as a part of the deal will tide us over until we find him.

I’ve sent the boys out to go look for him and they practically tripped over China. He’s not happy with us for a few unknown reasons and won’t even take a delegation. I guess that makes him next. Japan can live on a little longer - maybe even a lot longer if they’re far enough away. Trajan and Hojo are happy to purchase my excess marble so the coffers are filling nicely - 19.6 GPT.

In the meantime, the population has been busy revelling in our victories. Patna (5), Hyderabad (4), Mumbai (2), Agra (1) and Srinagar (1) have all been established. Patna has a campus up (with three mountains nearby) and Kyoto’s, Mumbai’s and Hyderabad’s are underway.

At turn 80, things are looking promising.

***

Turn 109 and we’ve added Chengdu and Xian to the Empire. In breaking news, we think we’ve found Fukuoka. If correct, it’s where we thought Rome was for the last 80 turns. Germany is to our East. (We’re in the bottom left corner of the world).

Germany has met Trajan but not China or Japan. Trajan has just denounced Japan so we might peace out with China - they only have Beijing left - and try for a joint war with Japan assuming we’ve correctly identified Fukuoka.

***

Turn 115 and China has been consigned to history. Warmonger score has increased with Trajan so I doubt he’ll want to be mates when our current friendship expires. Time to deal with Japan now. I have a newly trained catapult and an archer close by.

***

Japan was dealt with pretty quickly. Friendship expired with Trajan and denouncement followed.

From there, it was fairly peaceful while I built out a few more cities. Trajan declared war so I took a city and added another in the peace deal. He and Freddy hated me for the rest of the game.

After a bit of scouting I met Spain and Sumeria on the other side of the map quietly trying to kill each other. Sumeria invited me to joint war with Spain but I declined.

Peace ensued until around turn 240 when Trajan decided I hadn’t upgraded my military or built enough units and declared war along with Spain. By this point, I was bored trying to build the last parts - almost every city was on industrial or campus projects and I had 3,500 in the bank.

Upgraded two archers to machine guns and a spearman to an AT Crew - more than enough to put Trajan out of the game.

It was only right at the end I realised I’d neglected faith - 7,500 accrued I could have spent on an earlier Carl Sagan to bring it home 10 - 15 turns earlier.

Turn 226 with this one, the sub-200 continues to elude me but I am improving. Kind of middling map, high production/slow growth capital. There were Toronto and Seoul but not much else worthwhile except Zanzibar. The only nearby AI was the Americans, so once I conquered Teddy's two cities all the rest had to be settled. I'm learning to cut out anything that doesn't aid the goal, but still it's difficult to fit in enough expansion along with IZs, campuses, and district projects.

Ah, I did not know that replaying the map is not allowed. Apologies to everyone. I just hate starting a game not knowing if Toronto and Hongkong are not in there so i just replayed it. The patch may have solved that problem though

Ah, I did not know that replaying the map is not allowed. Apologies to everyone. I just hate starting a game not knowing if Toronto and Hongkong are not in there so i just replayed it. The patch may have solved that problem though

I just hate starting a game not knowing if Toronto and Hongkong are not in there so i just replayed it. The patch may have solved that problem though

Click to expand...

The patch did make Toronto pretty useless, so at least that's one problem solved. Though I think the patch also made t170 pretty unbeatable with higher tech costs and nerfed regional buildings. Not sure, haven't played with it yet. Actually, I haven't played any Civ at all in the past few weeks, looks like I won't have any time to submit a game to this gauntlet.

Currently the log files can reveal all the city states in a game immediately after the first turn, though peeking at them should obviously be considered an exploit. They can tell you way too much information that you shouldn't have at the time. If there is ever to be a HoF mod that is supposed to prevent cheating, like there is for Civ IV, then this would have to be dealt with somehow.

Currently the log files can reveal all the city states in a game immediately after the first turn, though peeking at them should obviously be considered an exploit. They can tell you way too much information that you shouldn't have at the time. If there is ever to be a HoF mod that is supposed to prevent cheating, like there is for Civ IV, then this would have to be dealt with somehow.

Click to expand...

I don't agree. HoF has a tradition of allowing players to choose every opponent. I see no reason not to extend this to City States to the extend that the game allows. If that means looking at a log and restarting when the desired CSs are not in the game, so be it. That is preferable to partially playing out a game to find out the desired CSs were never in the game at all.

Do we have rules regarding DLC? For the past few days, the Polish Civ DLC has been available. Will a game be valid for this gauntlet if the Polish Civ DLC is present? Is there a way to easily lock out this Civ to comply with the gauntlet's rules. Can we just specify every opponent and simply omit the Polish King/Queen?
Or would the Polish Civ be a valid opponent for this gauntlet?

I decided to go with 3 IZ, covering all of my cities and a Big Ben finisher. I doubt that Jesuit Education is worth the investment in the HS, as you will lack sience early on, maybe with Saladin.
I finished the last 4 parts of the spaceship with Sagan and 3 chops in one turn.

City states were OK, but sadly i did not have Stockholm. Had Geneva and Hongkong though.

As usual some early conquering, i conquered 7 cities and settled 9+capital for a total of 17 cities.

I made some mistakes in the mid-/lategame, so i finished the tech tree several turns before i could finish Big Ben - sub t180 should be perfectly possible with a better civ and less mistakes.
I actually think Rome now is by far the best civ for SV, because monuments are mandatory to get Democracy in time, which is required for a Big Ben finisher.

Well done whacker! I agree about Rome; it was already near the top of most tier lists before the patch, and it's even stronger post-patch. Rome's trade route bonus is also much more significant now that Commercial Hubs have replaced Industrial Zones as high-priority districts for most cities.

Speaking of which, I think I might try a strategy that focuses even more heavily on trade routes and gold generation and all but ignores production. Replace Ruhr Valley with Great Zimbabwe and run international trade routes from the Great Zimbabwe city. (Not sure if this is what DanQuayle did since I couldn't open his file without Aztecs.) Several city states aid this type of strategy, including Jakarta, Amsterdam, Kumasi, and even Carthage.

Do we have rules regarding DLC? For the past few days, the Polish Civ DLC has been available. Will a game be valid for this gauntlet if the Polish Civ DLC is present? Is there a way to easily lock out this Civ to comply with the gauntlet's rules. Can we just specify every opponent and simply omit the Polish King/Queen?
Or would the Polish Civ be a valid opponent for this gauntlet?

Click to expand...

I would think everything in the DLC is fine. There's no way to omit the additional city states and natural wonders AFAIK, and those are potentially more game-changing than having Poland as an opponent (Eyjafjallajökull and Giant's Causeway look super-strong).

Speaking of which, I think I might try a strategy that focuses even more heavily on trade routes and gold generation and all but ignores production. Replace Ruhr Valley with Great Zimbabwe and run international trade routes from the Great Zimbabwe city. (Not sure if this is what DanQuayle did since I couldn't open his file without Aztecs.) Several city states aid this type of strategy, including Jakarta, Amsterdam, Kumasi, and even Carthage.

Click to expand...

This sounds like a great idea. If you find a spot with 4-5 bonus resources, cattle and some hills to actually complete Great Zimbabwe in a reasonable time it might be our best bet at the moment. Kumasi also could take care of the culture when not playing as Rome.
I still like to have 3 IZ for overlapping and the 215 GE for the Colloseum